On April 19, 1995—exactly two years after the fiery conclusion of the botched Waco siege—McVeigh detonated explosives planted in a truck outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He plotted the attack with two fellow Army veterans who shared his anti-government views, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier.
The building housed offices for the Social Security Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Secret Service and the ATF, among other organizations. It also housed a veterans’ counseling center, a military recruitment office and a daycare center.
The Oklahoma City Bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children, and wounded hundreds more, in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history to that date.
Before he was executed in 2001, McVeigh made it clear that he intended the bombing as retribution for the deaths at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and had deliberately planned the bombing to take place on the second anniversary of the Waco disaster.
